Author Archive

Welcome to the second installment in our Get to Know You Interview series! My name is Nicole Wilmet and I am RSI’s Resource Center Director. Each month, I will be sitting down with members of the RSI staff to learn more about them and what they do in their role at RSI.

SMY: Back in college, I studied labor relations at Cornell University’s School of Industrial and Labor Relations. I was especially interested in the courses about mediation, arbitration and negotiation. The school was very divided between people coming from the labor perspective and those coming from the management perspective. That seemed pointless and wasteful to me.

When the school brought in someone from one of the very first community mediation organizations in the country to talk to the students about community mediation, it clicked for me. Why waste all that time and energy in divisiveness and angst when you can sit down and work out a plan that satisfies everyone?

NW: What is your favorite part about being a mediator?

SMY: The people. I love getting to know people and learning from them. People in conflict are often very open with mediators, and I am no exception. With that openness, I can generate rapport and help people construct a way out of a conflict that has been weighing them down. It is a pretty special service to be able to provide.

NW: How did RSI come to be?

SMY: That is a long story. As with many successful ventures, RSI started with a few smart, committed people who shared a vision. A judge, an academic and a funder saw the need for collecting and disseminating reliable data and guidance that courts could use to improve their management and delivery of ADR services. They formed the base for RSI and over the years we developed a remarkable Board of Directors, a fabulous staff and a wide array of services.

NW: With all the various types of ADR, how did RSI come to focus on court ADR specifically?

SMY: If we want to make systemic change in how people resolve their disputes, what better way than by working with courts? I have adapted the quote from the bank robber Willie Sutton who, when asked why he robbed banks, said, “Because that’s where the money is.” I say, “Why work with court ADR? That’s where the cases are.”

NW: What is a typical day like as Executive Director?

SMY: Ha! Typical day? There is no such thing!

NW: What is your favorite part of your job? Why?

SMY: Dispute system design. I love figuring out how ADR can meet the needs of people in dispute, as well as all the stakeholders. These days I am focused on online dispute resolution for families. A process like this will help smooth the way for parents as they go through separation or divorce, and we know less parental conflict is good for the children. It will help judges who are overwhelmed with parents who are trying to represent themselves. Plus, from the perspective of the ADR field, it will help keep the “A” in alternative dispute resolution.

NW: What role does RSI play in the ADR community and how do you see this role expanding in the future?

SMY: We are seen as the “go-to” source for everything related to court ADR. We accomplish a lot of this through our totally renovated website (AboutRSI.org) that we launched recently. The other critical piece is the expertise of our amazing staff. Over the years we have worked with all kinds of court, bar and other committees; trained mediators, judges and court staff; presented at conferences and via webinars; and written, written, written. With all these great resources – online and in person – I expect RSI will be able to meet the needs of people working in court ADR for years to come.

NW: During your time working in court ADR, what, if any, would you say has been one of the biggest challenges you have faced and how were you able to overcome this challenge?

SMY: Funding. I can’t say we have overcome this challenge, but I don’t know that any non-profit ever overcomes the challenge of bringing in the funds needed to provide services. I must say that RSI would not exist were it not for the generous support of the M.R. Bauer Foundation. They have supported us since the very beginning. Over the years, they have been joined by individuals, law firms, ADR providers, corporations and other foundations. We are also supported by government entities. For example, the Office of Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan has supported our work in foreclosure mediation for more than four years. Also, courts around the country have contracted with RSI to provide services ranging from training to program evaluations.

There is still a lot of work to do. If anyone wants to donate, they can visit our page on Razoo, which processes our contributions!

NW: What aspect of ADR are you most interested in?

SMY: I am dedicated to mediation as a method of improving access to justice. There are a lot of challenges, but I think there is enormous potential.

NW: What are some of your favorite projects that you have worked on while at RSI?

SMY: Foreclosure mediation is definitely a big favorite. This is the area where I say RSI got to “practice what we preach.” Thanks to the support of the Illinois Attorney General, we got to do it all: dispute system design with stakeholders, training mediators, administering programs, collecting monitoring data and conducting a statewide evaluation. We helped all the programs in the state improve by giving them actionable data. With foreclosure mediation, I think we showed we know what we are doing.

NW: What is your favorite activity to do outside of work?

SMY: Anything related to my son! He is a Marine so I don’t get to see him often, but he is always my favorite person. (Pictured below.)

NW: If you could have dinner with any three people (living or dead) who would they be and why?

SMY:

Jesus.

My great-great-great grandmother. She was pregnant when she got on a ship to emigrate to the US and she gave birth on that ship. I would want to ask her what she was thinking.

Welcome to the launch of our new Get to Know You Interview Series! My name is Nicole Wilmet and I am RSI’s Resource Center Director. Each month, I will be sitting down with members of the RSI staff to learn more about them and what they do in their role at RSI. To kick off our series I sat down with Jennifer Shack, RSI’s Director of Research.

NW: What is your role at RSI?

JS: Director of Research

NW: How long have you been at RSI?

JS: I have been at RSI for 18 years. It has gone by so fast! I started out as the Administrative Director at RSI and I was only planning on staying for a year and a half. But then I was offered a new position at RSI, Director of Research, and here I am.

NW: What is a typical day like as the Director of Research?

JS: I don’t really have a typical day because I’m involved in so many different projects. What I do in general is conduct evaluations for court programs as well as develop evaluation systems for our own programs, other court programs, and non-court programs. This means I figure out what data programs need to collect and how to best collect it. An evaluation system includes the instruments for collecting data (surveys, forms, case management systems, etc.), as well as the platform and structure for using those instruments. I also keep up on the research that other court ADR folks are doing so that we can use that information to inform our own practice and to help other programs by disseminating the information through our Resource Center. Our goal in disseminating information is to help programs develop effective practices for their programs and their mediators.

NW: What is your favorite part of your job? Why?

JS: I really enjoy working with the people at RSI. RSI has been lucky to always have a great staff that is fun to work with. In terms of my actual work, I enjoy taking information whether it is data we are collecting or research that others are doing and pulling it together to figure out what it is all telling us. It’s fun synthesizing data and drawing conclusions from that because it tells us more than the individual pieces alone. For example, the foreclosure mediation programs around Illinois can be looked at individually, but when the data from them is combined, we can get a clearer picture of the factors that lead to greater participation in the programs. The same goes for research. If we can find patterns in the research results, we can make stronger arguments about the efficacy of mediation in particular situations.

NW: Based on your experience, do you feel like there is a common theme/item that people working in Court ADR want to learn more about?

JS: A common theme right now that people want to know is what works. We know that ADR, and in particular mediation, can be effective. Now we want to know, what works better? Are there things that can be done program-wise to make them more efficient? Are there things mediators can do to make mediation more successful, to lead to better outcomes for people who participate in them?

NW: Do you feel like you have an answer to any of these questions yet?

JS: I think we are getting close to being able to answer those questions. In the past, little research has been focused on those things. Studies that have looked at program characteristics or mediator techniques haven’t been uniform in their categorizations of the factors being examined and many haven’t been rigorous enough, so while we have some ideas of what works, we don’t have definitive answers. However, there has been a real push lately to get to those answers. I think we are getting there.

NW: During your time working in Court ADR, what, if any, would you identify as being one of the biggest challenges you have faced?

JS: One of the challenges I faced when I first started was that I had a huge ADR learning curve because I came from a background in international studies. I became interested in mediation when I first experienced it as a Peace Corps volunteer in West Africa and thought it should be made available in the US. When I came back home, I looked into it and discovered it was already a part of the legal landscape.

NW: How were you able to overcome that learning curve?

JS: I became a mediator myself. From that I had a better understanding of what I was reading about mediation because I had actual experience I could pull from. When I started maintaining RSI’s Resource Center, I also read everything about the theory of ADR and about issues that were popping up at the time. And of course, I learned a lot from Susan [RSI’s Executive Director], too.

NW: What aspect of ADR are you most interested in?

JS: I am really interested in the ways in which ADR can open access to justice for people who don’t have the means to go through litigation process and how it can provide voice to those who don’t generally have one in the justice system. In terms of types of programs, I am very interested in the impact that child protection mediation can have on the parents involved.

NW: What are some of your favorite projects that you have worked on at RSI? Why?

JS: I have two favorite projects. The first was an evaluation of Cook County’s [Chicago] Child Protection Mediation Program. I loved it because I was actually able to see the impact of ADR on the participants. I observed 30 mediations and I was able to see how it could change their perspective in what was going on –particularly for the parents. It was enlightening to be able to watch the parents sit down and talk about what they needed and to talk with the people who decide what happens to their children. It was also rewarding for me to be able to talk to parents afterwards, to confirm that it was a positive experience for them and then put their perspective into a report with other quantitative and qualitative data that showed how important this type of mediation is and how beneficial it is overall.

My other favorite project was working on our foreclosure mediation programs. I enjoyed the intellectual process of being able to take, what is now, eight very different programs and figure out how to collect the same data from them while keeping costs down and administrative time to a minimum. I loved analyzing the data across the programs and being able to use the results of that analysis to identify what makes such programs successful. In the end, it was really rewarding to make recommendations based on my analysis and see programs make changes based on those recommendations and then see those changes lead to improvements in the effectiveness of the programs.

NW: You have written excellent resources on Court ADR, which resource would you say you are most proud of?

JS: Anything outdoors: hiking, biking, walking on the beach, or walking in the woods. As long as it is outdoors and in nature I am happy.

NW: If you could have dinner with any three people (living or dead) who would they be and why?

JS: I would have dinner with Mohammad, Jesus and Buddha because I would love to see what they would say to each other, how they would interact. Would they dwell on their similarities or their differences? I’d also want to ask how they feel their messages have been followed over time.

Recently our Executive Director Susan Yates participated in this Q&A by Liz Markel on the topic of navigating through conflict at the Nonprofit Chicago blog. The blog is hosted by the Axelson Center for Nonprofit Management at North Park University. Susan will present a workshop on this subject at North Park University on March 25. Reprinted from Nonprofit Chicago:

Is there anything positive about conflict?

Yes! If we all just got along all the time, we wouldn’t improve our decisions or learn how to understand one another better. Just as we know that diversity of backgrounds and experiences enrich our nonprofits, so does some healthy disagreement. The question is how you and your organization manage that conflict. (more…)